"When we did 'Hand In Glove,' that was brilliant because it was a fantastic piece of vinyl. But there was never a time when I put my feet up and said, 'Ah, I'm happy.'"
"That song came about when I was round my parents' house one Sunday evening. I started playing this riff on a crappy guitar I kept there. Angie - who's now my wife - was with me and she kept saying, 'That's really good!' I was panicking because I had nothing to record it on, so we decided to drive to Morrissey's, because he had a tape recorder. I sat in the back of the car playing the riff over and over so I wouldn't forget it. On the way, as is her want, Angie kept saying, 'Make it sound more like Iggy'. I was just hoping Morrissey would be in. Well, I knew he would be, he was always in. When we got there he was a bit taken aback, it hadn't been arranged and it was a Sunday night-unheard of! He let me in and I played the riff and he said, 'That's very good'. About five days later we were rehearsing and Morrissey wanted to play the song. When we heard the vocals to that we were all like,wow... From then on it was always going to be the first single."
I created this blog to showcase the guitar work of Johnny Marr from the Smiths, and to help those who want to learn his guitar parts or learn more about his gear and production techniques.
I will cover the catalog song by song, using youtube videos from guitarists, chords, tab, and comments from Johnny when they are available. Many of the songs feature many different guitar tracks; often one person will capture something that another will not, so I will be posting everything that I feel helps with the understanding of the overall song, or any part of it. If anyone has anything to contribute, please email me at thom@smithsonguitar.com